BIDMC Interpreter Services Marks 30 Years
Staff of 60 handles 40 languages, 125,000 encounters
Date: 5/20/2009
BIDMC Contact: Jerry Berger
Phone: 617-667-7308
Email: jberger@bidmc.harvard.edu
BOSTON – It started in 1979, when the former Beth Israel Hospital hired its first Russian interpreter. By 1983, Interpreter Services had grown to some 4,000 patient encounters. Today, a department of more than 60 staff and per diem interpreters serve more than 40 languages providing more than 125,000 encounters each year either in-person or by telephone.
To mark the occasion, more than 100 staff and guests gathered Monday to celebrate 30 years of service.
“It’s important to be supported by professionals who are not just translators, but interpreters, because when we are facing matters of life and death cultural differences can be crucial,” said Dimitrios Tzachanis, MD, an oncologist who works closely with Spanish Oscar Flores. “Different cultures face cancer differently.”
Asked to explain the difference between translation and interpretation, Tzachanis said, “Translation is when we literally take one sentence and translate it into the other language. Interpretation is when we use our brain and the knowledge of the other culture to transfer the meaning, and help them understand.”
Keynote speaker, The Honorable Fernande R.V. Duffly, a member of the Massachusetts Appeals Courts since 2000, shared her personal story of coming to the United States at the age of six, a child of immigrants, who did not speak English and the challenges she overcame to pursue a life as a judge who has made access to the courts one of her top priorities. She spoke of how the importance of how one word gets interpreted can make all the difference in the world of justice – just as it does in medicine.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a patient care, teaching and research affiliate of Harvard Medical School, and consistently ranks among the top four in National Institutes of Health funding among independent hospitals nationwide. BIDMC is clinically affiliated with the Joslin Diabetes Center and is a research partner of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. BIDMC is the official hospital of the Boston Red Sox. For more information, visit www.bidmc.org .
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